Is it Kashmir, Azad Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir or Azad Jammu and Kashmir?
Why Is It Called Azad Kashmir? The Name Originally Meant More Than Today’s Azad Jammu and Kashmir
Today, Azad Kashmir is commonly understood to mean the territory officially known as Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).
But historically, the expression “Azad Kashmir” did not simply mean the small territory that appears on today’s map of AJK.
The term emerged from political movements concerned with the future of the whole princely State of Jammu and Kashmir.
Understanding that history explains why people in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan continue to use the name Azad Kashmir, and why the name carries a meaning much larger than the present-day boundaries of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
“Azad Kashmir” Existed Before Present-Day AJK
The expression Azad Kashmir was already being used before the present government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir was established in October 1947.
One documented example comes from the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, which issued a pamphlet entitled Azad Kashmir at its annual session in Poonch in 1945. The following year, political discussions concerning an “Azad Kashmir” continued as different movements challenged the existing political order in the princely state.
Another historical account records the use of the name “Azad Kashmir Gate” at a political conference held at Kaba Marg in the Kashmir Valley in May 1946. The important point is that the expression existed before the Partition of British India, before Pakistan was created, and before today’s territorial division of Jammu and Kashmir existed.
This means that Azad Kashmir was originally an idea before it became the name of a particular administered territory.
What Did “Azad Kashmir” Originally Mean?
The word Azad means free or liberated.
In the political language of the period, Azad Kashmir therefore conveyed the idea of a free Jammu and Kashmir — a state whose people would determine their own political future rather than remain permanently under autocratic Dogra rule.
Importantly, the word Kashmir in this political expression was not restricted to the geographical Kashmir Valley.
It referred more broadly to the political entity then officially known as the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
That princely state included regions such as:
- Jammu
- the Kashmir Valley
- Poonch
- Mirpur
- Ladakh
- Gilgit
- Baltistan
- and other associated mountain territories.
The original idea of Azad Kashmir was therefore much broader than today’s Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
It concerned the political future of the people of the entire princely state.
This Explains the Name Better Than Today’s Map
If somebody looks only at a modern map, the name can appear confusing.
Why is a territory containing places such as Mirpur, Bhimber and Poonch called “Azad Kashmir” when these areas were historically not simply parts of the Kashmir Valley?
The answer is that “Kashmir” in Azad Kashmir was being used in the wider political sense of Jammu and Kashmir, not merely as the name of the Valley.
The modern territory of AJK represents only one part of the former princely state.
The name is therefore older and politically broader than the borders eventually created by the conflict of 1947–49.
1947 Changed the Meaning of the Name?
The political crisis of 1947 transformed “Azad Kashmir” from an aspiration into the name of an actual government and administered territory.
The princely State of Jammu and Kashmir had a Muslim-majority population but was ruled by the Dogra Maharaja Hari Singh.
Political tensions increased dramatically during 1947, and rebellion broke out in western areas, particularly Poonch.
On 24 October 1947, a provisional government under Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan was established in the areas that had passed out of the Maharaja’s control.
The government became known as the Azad Government of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
That wording is important.
It did not originally describe itself merely as the government of Mirpur, Muzaffarabad or the territory that later became today’s AJK.
The political conception was connected to the State of Jammu and Kashmir as a whole.
Azad Kashmir Was an Idea for the Whole State
This is the historical point that is easily lost today.
Modern readers see Azad Kashmir on one side of the Line of Control and may understandably assume that this is all the name ever meant.
Historically, however, Azad Kashmir represented a political idea concerning a much larger territory.
From the Pakistani and Azad Kashmiri perspective, the areas liberated from Dogra authority in 1947 became the first territory governed under the Azad Kashmir administration, but they did not represent the full geographical extent of the political aspiration.
The wider Jammu and Kashmir dispute remained unresolved.
Consequently, the name Azad Kashmir continued to carry two meanings:
first, the territory actually administered by the Azad Government;
and second, the wider political aspiration that the people of the former princely State of Jammu and Kashmir should be able to determine their own future.
Why Pakistan Did Not Simply Absorb Azad Jammu and Kashmir as a Province
This historical context also helps explain the distinctive political position of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan did not simply rename the territory and incorporate it as an ordinary Pakistani province.
Instead, AJK developed its own political institutions, including its own President, Prime Minister, Legislative Assembly and courts.
This arrangement reflects Pakistan’s longstanding position that the final status of the former State of Jammu and Kashmir remains unresolved and should ultimately be decided according to the wishes of its people.
The Kashmir dispute subsequently became an international issue at the United Nations, where proposals for a plebiscite were adopted but never implemented. The disagreements over the conditions required for that plebiscite became one of the central unresolved issues of the conflict.
From this perspective, Azad Jammu and Kashmir was not intended to redefine the whole Kashmir question around the boundaries of the territory under its administration.
Those boundaries resulted from war.
The political question concerned the former princely state as a whole.
Why “Azad Jammu and Kashmir” Is the Formal Name
The formal name Azad Jammu and Kashmir is particularly useful because it reminds us that the territory and political movement were never concerned solely with the Kashmir Valley.
The word Jammu acknowledges the historical relationship of many areas and communities within AJK to the wider Jammu region.
Mirpur, Bhimber, Kotli and parts of historic Poonch cannot properly be understood simply by treating them as extensions of the Kashmir Valley.
The complete name therefore preserves an important historical reality:
Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) emerged from the wider State of Jammu and Kashmir, not simply from the Kashmir Valley.
Why People Still Say “Azad Kashmir”
Despite the official name, most people simply say Azad Kashmir.
A person from Mirpur, Kotli, Bhimber, Poonch, Bagh or Muzaffarabad may naturally say:
“I am from Azad Kashmir.”
They are not necessarily claiming that their ancestors came from the Kashmir Valley.
They are using the historic collective name that developed from the political movement and government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Over nearly eight decades, the expression has consequently acquired several overlapping meanings.
It is a political name.
It is a territorial name.
It is a cultural identity.
And for millions of people living abroad, it has become a diaspora identity.
The Meaning of Azad Kashmir in Pakistan
Within Pakistan, the term Azad Kashmir is commonly understood in the context of the wider Jammu and Kashmir dispute.
From the Pakistani perspective, the political division created after 1947 did not necessarily represent a permanent settlement of the former princely state’s future.
Pakistan’s traditional position has been that the people of Jammu and Kashmir should exercise the right to determine their political future.
Consequently, the word Azad is not merely a geographical label.
For supporters of this position, it represents the idea that the areas forming modern Azad Jammu and Kashmir were freed from Dogra rule while the broader question concerning the former State of Jammu and Kashmir remained unresolved.
The Meaning of Azad Kashmir Among Its People
Among the people of Azad Jammu and Kashmir themselves, the name has also become something more personal.
It links communities from very different areas.
Someone may primarily identify as Mirpuri, Poonchi, Sudhan, Gujjar, Rajput, Jat or through another district, tribal or biradari identity while simultaneously identifying as Azad Kashmiri.
The expression therefore creates a collective identity among communities that do not necessarily share exactly the same dialect, tribal background or local history.
The name that once described a political movement has gradually become the name of a people.
Azad Kashmir and the Diaspora
This transformation is particularly visible among the Azad Jammu and Kashmir diaspora.
Large communities originating from Mirpur, Kotli, Bhimber and other parts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir now live in Britain, Europe, North America, the Middle East and elsewhere.
A British-born person whose grandparents came from Mirpur might simply say:
“My family comes from Azad Kashmir.”
For them, Azad Kashmir can mean ancestry, homeland, family, village, history and identity.
This does not mean that Mirpur is geographically situated in the Kashmir Valley.
It means that Azad Kashmir has become the collective name of the political and cultural community to which Mirpur belongs today.
From a Political Idea to a Modern Identity
The history of the name can therefore be understood as a progression.
Before 1947:
Azad Kashmir was a political idea concerned with freedom, representative government and the future of the wider State of Jammu and Kashmir (including what is currently Indian Occupied Kashmir).
In 1947:
The name became attached to the provisional government created in territory freed from the Maharaja’s effective authority.
After 1947:
Azad Kashmir increasingly became the everyday geographical name for the territory administered by the Azad Jammu and Kashmir government.
Today:
Azad Kashmir is simultaneously a political, geographical, cultural and diaspora identity.
So Why Is Azad Jammu and Kashmir Called “Azad Kashmir”?
Because Azad Kashmir originally meant more than the territory we call Azad Jammu and Kashmir today.
The name was born from political movements concerned with the future of the whole State of Jammu and Kashmir.
When the Azad government was established in 1947, it governed only part of that former state, but the wider Jammu and Kashmir question remained unresolved.
The territory administered by that government gradually became commonly known as Azad Kashmir, while its formal name remained Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
That distinction explains something that otherwise appears puzzling.
Azad Kashmir is not simply another name for the Kashmir Valley.
Nor did the term originate simply as an abbreviation for today’s Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Historically, Azad Kashmir expressed the aspiration for a free Jammu and Kashmir whose people would determine their own political future.
The present territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir is therefore the place where that name became institutionalised in 1947 — but the historical idea behind the name was connected to the much larger former princely State of Jammu and Kashmir.
That is why, more than seventy years later, its people still naturally call their homeland Azad Kashmir.